Lost Book Club
"Hell of a book. It's about bunnies!"Stranger in a Strange Land
I’m in love with this book! And because I’ve
fallen in love with this book, I’ve been taking
my time finishing it. I don’t want it to end.
I’ll make myself finish it soon, in time to read
November’s selection, but I thought since
we are getting into November I would
comment on the book and any Lost
connection I’ve found thus far.
The biggest link to Lost, is the season three
episode of the same name as the novel.
It’s a Jack-centric episode where in his
flashback he is in Thailand, having a fling
with a woman there who tattoos him.
The mark / tattoo results in Jack getting
the crap beat out of him. On the island,
Jack is being held by the others and
bargains with Ben to save Juliet’s life,
once he figures out from these strange
Others what is going on. Both on the
island and in his flashback, Jack is
the stranger in the strange land.
Also, the tattoo that Jack gets in this
episode’s flashback translates as: He
walks among us, but he is not one of
us. The same can be said for the novel’s
protagonist Valentine Michael Smith
who was conceived by humans, but
raised on Mars only to return to earth
at the human age of twenty-five. He isn’t
Martian, but was raised by them. He’s born
from humans, but doesn’t think or feel like
them.
The title Stranger in a Strange Land comes
from a passage in the Bible, Exodus 2:22:
“And she [Zippo'rah] bare him a son,
and he called his name Gershom: for he
said, I have been a stranger in a strange
land.” Exodus part 1 & 2 was the title of the
Lost season one finale.
One thing that makes me laugh is how
Mike, as the Man for Mars comes to be
called, thinks of humans as Others when
he first arrives on earth. There is a character
named Ben who is very resourceful and
tries to take matters in his own hands, fighting
the status quo. He is involved with a nurse named
Jill, but as far as any major character comparisons
to Lost, there’s really none here.
I’ll comment again after I finish if I feel like there’s
some Lost comparison in how it all ends. Back to
reading!
Walden Two
The big link between Walden Two with Lost is
the Dharma Initiative. Skinner is referenced
directly by Marvin Candle in the Swan
Orientation Video:
The DHARMA Initiative was created in
1970, and is the brainchild of Gerald
and Karen DeGroot, two doctoral
candidates at the University of Michigan.
Following in the footsteps of visionaries
such as B.F. Skinner, (tape skip)
imagined a large-scale communal research
compound where scientists and free-thinkers
from around the globe could pursue research
in meteorology, psychology, parapsychology,
zoology, electromagnetism and utopian socia-
(the video skips here.)
The interesting thing about the Dharma
Initiative compared to Walden Two and
B.F. Skinner is how it appears NOT to
have worked, and how what they
did or tried to do ended up being
very un-Skinner Utopian like.
As good as the DeRoots intentions
may have been for the Dharma Initiative,
members like Radzinsky certainly were not
behaving like they were part or wanted to
be part of a Utopian Society. For
example, we know that Radzinsky edited
the very Swan orientation Video above,
but we don’t know why.
There are many parallels to the Walden Two
that Skinner describes and what Dharma
was trying to do – live and work together,
everyone doing equal work,
everyone raising the kids as a group,
schooling their own children, and the
experiments – like the button
pushing in the Swan station and
the note takers (watching the
button pushers) in the Pearl Station.
We still don’t know the extent of the
Dharma experiments. Were
experiments done on Miles (which is
why he can hear dead people) or
Daniel – to make him smarter
like the protagonist in Flowers for
Algernon?
What interests me more than the
comparison to the Dharma initiative
and the society that Skinner
describes in Walden Two – and this
may say a lot about my personality -
is the way the Others use what the
Dharma initiative left behind, how they
use equipment and experiments to
manipulate the behavior of
our Castaways.
The biggest example are the cages
that the Others put Kate and Sawyer
into. These cages represent
Skinner Boxes which B.F. used
to conduct behavior experiments.
The Others use them as holding cells
for Kate and Sawyer, but they are so
much more than that. They face Kate
and Sawyer opposite each other, putting
Kate in a sexy dress. And through
working together and fighting
with the Others especially Danny,
they literally make Kate and Sawyer
confront their feelings for each other.
(And a major issue for the Others,
especially Ben, is fertility so they
want Kate pregnant, Losties breeding,
etc.)
Ben’s biggest weapon is his ability to
predict and manipulate the behavior
of others. He does it with Kate and
Sawyer in the cages;
with Sawyer and the heart monitor;
Kate at breakfast on the beach (“I wanted
you to have something pleasant
to look back on because the next
two weeks are going to be
very unpleasant”); Jack in the
aquarium (“I want you to
want to do the surgery); and
with John Locke in getting
him to blow up the submarine.
In Walden Two, the way Frazier
tries to always steer the
conversation reminds me of Ben.
He also comes across as
an unstable leader like Ben.
Also the way Frazier tosses
off important or seemingly
un-important information
in conversation reminded
me very much of Ben:
“Each reference was tossed
off in the most casual way.”
When the group of visitors arrive
to Walden Two and Frazier suggests
that they rest a bit; the narrators
distrust in him, thinking that
Frazier said that to stimulate
their curiosity reminded me of the
dynamic between Locke and Ben.
How Locke starts to catch on to
and suspect Ben’s games and
motivations.
The portable electric fence used for
security in Walden Two, and for making
the sheep behave reminded me of the
invisible security fence / system on
Lost. It also reminded
me of the smoke monster.
Finally, the whole attitude about
raising children better, more efficiently
as a group – which is in Walden Two
reminds me more of the Others than
the Dharmas. There are still
unanswered questions about the
Others: stealing kids, fertility issues,
Jacob’s list. But they seem to raise
the children as a group, or like with
Ben and Alex, raise children that
belong to other people.
It’s funny that I read a book where
the direct parallel to Lost seems to
be with the Dharma Initiative, or
what the DeGroots were trying to
do with Dharma and
yet all I want to focus on is how
Ben and the Others used Skinner-
like techniques, equipment and
experiments to manipulate our
losties. Season three is all about
that for me and I love it!
Island by Aldous Huxley
Like with Valis, the biggest comparison
between this novel and Lost, for me, was
in its opening pages. The very first shot in
the Lost pilot is Jack’s eye then we see that
he’s waking up, in shock, lying on the ground,
having just survived the plane crash.
This is the second paragraph of Huxley’s
Island:
Lying there like a corpse in the
dead leaves, his hair matted,
his face grotesquely smudged
and bruised, his clothes in rags
and muddy, Will Farnaby awoke
with a start.
That has to be where the Lost guys got
the idea of how to open the show. I love
how the first chapter tells us what happened
previously with Molly leaving, that they broke
up and what happened to her. The way the first
chapter skips around in time from Farnaby’s
present and past reminds me of an early
episode of Lost with the flashbacks, how we
learned about the characters past and
how they got to the island.
The one direct reference Lost makes to Huxley’s
last novel is with the Pala Ferry. The Pala Ferry is a
ferry system set up by the Dharma Initiative as a
way to transport it’s Pearl and Hydra station
workers. The Others used the Pala Ferry
dock as well. Pala is the name of Huxley’s
Pacific island where an ideal society has
flourished for 120 years. Perhaps
that is what the Dharma’s were shooting
for?
Group living is a common theme in both
the book and Lost. Although the people
on the island of Pala don’t mirror any one
specific group on Lost – the Losties,
the Others, or the Dharmas. They did remind
me of the Dharmas with their experimental
drug use for enlightenment and entering trances
for higher learning. They reminded me of the
Others in relation to children. The people on
Pala developed a Mutual Adoption Club for
children so the kids wouldn’t be exposed to
their parents’ neuroses. I’m re-watching Lost
season two now and this reminded me
of how the Others are taking kids from the
tail section.
In the novel’s opening Will mirrors Jack
for me as far as waking up shipwrecked
on the island and being haunted by
his past personal trauma, but that’s the
only direct comparison I see between the
characters.
(I think I got spoiled with The Stand as far as
that goes.)
- Jennie
Valis (Here time turns into space)
We can keep the comments coming in for
The Stand, but let’s also start our discussion
of Valis by Philip K. Dick. Such a different read
than The Stand, far less plot, but such
an intense narrative landscape.
I thought of Hurley being in a mental
hospital throughout reading this one,
but the first person I thought of, in terms
of comparing him to “Horselover Fat” was Jack.
It was how Horselover couldn’t stop helping
people, which is addressed on the very first page:
His psychiatrist once told him that to
get well he would have to do two things;
get off dope (which he hadn’t done)
and to stop trying to help people
(he still tried to help people).
This made me think of Jack, like
for example, in the season one
episode called Do No Harm, he
tries pretty much everything to save
Boone, including giving Boone
a blood transfusion with his own
blood. In the season three finale,
Jack demands to operate on a patient
(whose accident he caused while
preparing to jump off a bridge)
while he’s addicted to pain killers.
Clearly in the flash forwards,
Jack’s addiction to pain killers,
his need to save / help people
along and his “failure”
to do so are driving him toward
madness. It’s the idea
of going back to the island (his destiny,
saving the people they left behind)
that propels him away from
his addiction to pain medication and his crazed
state / rut. Like Horselover Fat, Jack
could not or cannot stop trying to help people.
Another thing I found interesting is how
Horselover Fat (I really like typing
that name) started to know things
that he had never known after the laser
beam struck him (like information about
his son’s illness). This reminded me of how
the island can bring certain powers to people
that they never had before: hearing voices, seeing
the dead/past/future, healing the sick, increasing
knowledge.
It also reminded me of the conversation Ben and
Locke (or the mystery man as Locke) had last
season where Ben asked Locke how he just
suddenly knew things. Like Horselover
Fat, “Locke” was fine with just suddenly
knowing these things. It was the
people around him that found this odd.
In Valis, there’s the ongoing free will
discussion with Roman Catholic friend David.
Free will is a theme throughout Lost.
David also mentions C.S. Lewis who is
referenced on Lost, most directly when
Ben informs the Losties that Charlotte’s
name is Charlotte Staples Lewis.
I laughed when Latin was the language
that Fat started speaking out of nowhere.
Latin the language of the Others.
Valis actually appears in Lost’s
season four episode of Eggtown.
Lock takes it off Ben’s bookshelf and
brings it to Ben for him to read while
Ben is held hostage in his own house.
I found it funny that the book is about a
person’s own madness, his own alter-ego.
Ben tells Locke that he’s already read it.
Locke tells Ben, he might catch something
he missed the second time around.
I also found that amusing because of
how Lost works - easter eggs and catching
stuff we missed the first time around
and also a reference to time looping,
perhaps, for our Losties, depending
on how you look at the time travel
and what happens going forward
after the bomb. When and where
did Ben read it the first time?
That brings me to the biggest
comparison I found
between Lost and Valis.
Valis suggests that time travel
can be done in the mind – by
remembering the past and
the future, that humans are
powerful enough to do it and
because we posses the same
DNA as our ancestors. This
reminded me of the time travel
storyline in Lost, and
made me wonder just how much
control mentally
they really do/did have over it.
It also made me think of the whole
flash back and flash forward concept.
Is ALL the flashing forward and back
going on while Kate, Jack and company
just sit on the beach ala season one?
- Jennie
Lost & The Stand
Let’s start with the good vs. evil thing.
It was timely to read this on the heels of
the Lost season five finale where we saw
Jacob vs. the dark man. There’s the obvious
parallel between Jacob and Mother Abigail -
Jacob coming to the Losties in flashback /
at important moments in their lives vs.
Mother Abigail coming to people in their
dreams.
Trashcan man dragging the bomb to
Vegas and it blowing up the evil camp
was also timely after seeing what we
think was the bomb exploding via Juliet
at the end of this last finale.
Lost and all over the Stand with the dark man.
He sees what others are up to with the eye,
in his dreams, through the eye of the crow,
even giving his chosen ones a necklace that
represents the eye.
The Lost creators have said that an actor’s
eyes are an important element of casting.
It’s the first shot we see in the Lost pilot -
Jack’s eye opening. And it remains a recurring
theme / opening shot throughout the show.
The opening shot is often the character’s eye
who is featured in that episode’s flashback.
This happens early in season one with episodes
centered on Clarie (Raised by Another), Locke
(Walkabout) and Sun (House of the Rising Sun.)
Remember in the season three episode,
The Man Behind the Curtain, Locke looks in
Jacob’s Cabin and sees an eye. Juliet’s eye opens
season three in the episode A Tale of Two Cities.
And the one teaser we have so far for next
season is a greenish looking, Jack(?)
eyeball.
But the thing I found myself thinking
about most while reading was the dark man’s
shape-shifting ways. How that reminded
me of how on Lost, the dark man shape-shifted
into Locke this past season. Has he been
shape-shifting into images of the dead
even though Christian said to Locke, in the season
four episode, Cabin Fever, I can speak on behalf
of Jacob. Has the dark man pegged John
Locke as his loophole all along?
This question of just how much shape-shifting
the dark man has done came to mind when I
re-watched the season five episode,
Dead is Dead.
The Dark Man as John Locke leads Ben down into
the temple to face the smoke monster. Ben falls
and goes into a lower level of the temple by
himself – “John Locke” is no longer with him.
Smokey comes out and passes his judgment -
letting Ben live. Then after Smokey leaves,
we see Alex. Now did Smokey turn into Alex or
conjure Alex? Or since “John Locke” wasn’t
around, did the dark man shape-shift into Alex?
Remember this “Alex” told Ben to follow John
Locke, to do everything he said. This had to
be the dark man, right, telling Ben to follow
him (as John Locke). Is the smoke monster
connected to this, to the dark man and
shape shifting or is smokey a
complete separate entity?
The Stand and Lost like the fertility issue that
the Captain Trips survivors faced. The character
that felt like the biggest homage to me is Charlie
Pace / Larry Underwood. The whole recurring
Baby, Can You Dig Your Man thing made
me laugh and think of Charlie’s one hit
with Drive Shaft: You All Everybody.
Plus how Charlie struggles with
feeling inadequate compared to
the rest of the Losties, then
sacrifices himself.
reference within Lost are also referenced here
- Watership Downis a big recurring one for
Stu Redman. Loved the recurring rabbit
references – with Watership Down, the
rabbits feet, and Lloyd’s tragic childhood
memory. I couldn’t help but think
of the Lost writers snickering as they
put rabbit references throughout
the show.
I loved the Flowers for Algernon
reference which Harold makes as
he’s dying. That book is never directly
referenced on Lost but the protagonist,
named Charley, is a human guinea pig,
turned into a genius by scientists. The
Dharmas probably did something like
that, maybe with Miles. And I wouldn’t
put it past Charles and Eloise to do a
similar experiment with Daniel Faraday.
(Love the name Faraday showing up in
The Stand epilogue.)
how so much happens over a small
span of time (on the island in seasons
1 – 4 for the Losties; the summer the
flu hits in the book). Also, how for the
first half of the novel we are with one
character for one chapter, another in
the next, much like how we got to know
our Losties per episode / flashback in
the earlier seasons.
This was big for me in terms of what
next season could be, theme-wise.
On page 902 in the uncut edition as
Mother Abigail gives Stu, Ralph,
Larry, and Glen their mission, she says:
(I almost hear Lostie Rose’s voice here)
God didn’t bring you folks together
to make a committee or community.
He brought you here only to send you
further, on a quest. He means for you
to try and destroy this Dark Prince,
this Man of Far Leagues.
That reminded me of Jacob’s very last words to
Ben and Dark Man / “John Locke”:
They’re coming.
Are our remaining Losties coming to defeat
the dark man? Has that been the purpose
of everything up to this point?
Welcome to the Lost Book Club
Namaste!
To survive the withdrawal between seasons and help prepare for the final season of Lost, we have formed a Lost book club. You are welcome to join us and comment at any time. Here Others are not only welcome, but appreciated.
Our reading schedule is below. This month, we are currently discussing The Stand by Stephen King, while we are reading Philip K. Dick’s Valis. The plan -and like Ben Linus, we do always have one – is to continue the discussion through the final season.
June 2009: The Stand by Stephen King
July 2009: Valis by Philip K Dick
August 2009: Island by Aldous Huxley
September 2009: Walden Two by BF Skinner
October 2009: Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
November 2009: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
December 2009: The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares
(This is a novella for the busy holiday month)
January 2010: Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
- Jennie
